Spring City Plein aire

Its not too hard to get back in the mood to paint. I spent two days this week in beautiful Spring City, Utah for the Spring City plein aire compitition. I painted two semi OK oils and one awful watercolor which no one will ever see. I forgot to get a shot of the first oil which was painted up Fairview caynon... the second oil was a hour long study, which not surprisingly was fresher and ...well not so stuffy.





It rained on me while I worked on both paintings, my good 'ol maxima is turning into the paint mule.

update

If you are reading the date on this post you will realize that it has been a while since I posted... but I have been painting! I promise


I used a wax crayon here to soften the mask...


and a Friskit mask here, I like the hard edges for the leaves.


I need to make a new easel, mine is reaching the end of its life!

Stay tuned for the finished painting.

New Watercolor

I am still working from some images of a new pond (a bi-product of the recently built Pioneer Crossing Highway). I have done a few sketches of this clump of trees perched above very still water. I did this very fast color study to identify what color direction I was going ... in hind site I should have done a color wheel with a clear color scheme and swatches, maybe even on watercolor paper.



I have a few images I am working from, as you can see. I am eventually going to render some of these in oil, but I am liking the process of watercolor, and its unexpected detours. My goal is to work looser but with more focus on emotional color and complex values. The series of paintings will help with that.



This represents the first hour of the painting; loose and colorful. I am planning to use some masking fluid to isolate these initial values, in a few places; in the top of the tree for example. I hate the hard edges and non-graceful shapes that Friskit makes, I might try some white crayon in combination with liquid masking.

Well, it's a start!!!

I would like to dedicate this first post to my friend Kyoung. Yes I know that is weird to dedicate a post,but she and I will probably be the only ones who ever read it!

For about 6 months now I have been in a painting funk. I started this blog as a way of keeping myself accountable to post new paintings and talk about problems and overcoming my horrible studio habits!



So I took a series of photos a few months ago at a rural containment pond. It cost me dearly in mosquito bites, and a car that smelled like roadkill skunk for weeks. I have been doing a few thumbnails and sketches, but today I finished a small 5x11 inch watercolor.



I notice that it still seems overworked, dry, and overly textured; all things I am trying to adjust in my work. I tell my watercolor students all the time "let the paint and water flow and do the work." I need to follow my own advice! I do however think that the foreground/background relationship is nice.


I used a slightly longer format, more than a double square(11x5) I really like that extra bit of "landscape"ish longness. I think that I will do a few more watercolors and then start an oil.